Survivors
by frozenhands
Summary: When Clem gets bit, AJ has a decision to make. Run or stop her from becoming a walker? Leaving her is unfathomable. He chooses a third option.


**A/N: **This is my fluffy little attempt at answering the question of how Clementine survived in the final episode, _Take Us Back. _The episode sent me on an emotional roller-coaster. I hope you enjoy!

_**Survivors**_

Clementine flinched as AJ swung the axe down towards her, readying herself for the end.

Instead the axe cut into her split open, bitten leg, right below the knee joint. Searing pain blazed through her and she screamed in agony as her vision went fuzzy. The walkers went wild, snarling and pushing on the barn doors.

Clem was frozen in pain, the amputation rendering her too disabled to make any movements. "C - cover the w - wound," she mumbled to AJ, as if drugged while the blood splattered from her leg. He took off his shirt and tied it tight around Clementine's leg, and she screamed as the material touched her stump, horrified as she looked at the severed part of her leg in front of her.

It...was gone. She was - alive? Dying? Perhaps thirty minutes had already passed since the bite; was it too late?

She felt like she was on fire.

Of the times she'd hacked into a limb to save a friend, she'd never... never fathomed what it would be like for one of her own to be amputated.

"You're gonna be okay," AJ said frantically. "I'm going to walk through the herd... find the school... we'll save you. Hang on, Clem."

"AJ," she screamed in agony.

"I promise. This wasn't supposed to happen to you," he repeated. "Live, Clem... I'll be right back."

He covered himself in more walker guts to cover up Clem's blood that had splattered onto his clothes. After looking back at her, he headed out of the barn by the back exit where the walkers less frequented, slamming the doors shut and keeping Clementine safely confined within its walls.

He could do this. He'd done it before. _Just act like a monster._

_"Clementine."_

_"Lee?"_ Clementine met Lee inside the train in her eight year old body, gripping her leg in pain.

_"I'm here, sweetpea."_

_"Lee, it hurts so much."_

_"I know it does. You've just got to hold on. Your little boy's coming back for you."_

_She squeezed her face up and cried._ "_I need them to come now, Lee. I can't hold on much longer._"

_"You've always been a fighter, sweetpea. From the beginning. You're going to make it. You have to."_

_He sat down beside her and they leaned in for a hug, Lee holding her tight. "He's at the school and he's bringing the others. They're on their way as fast as they can with all those walkers."_

_"How are they going to make it?"_

_"They'll cover themselves in their guts. They'll walk through the herd. For you."_

_"All of them though?"_

_"Every one of them. They're not letting you die, Clem. Don't you give up. Open your eyes."_

_"Lee, I can't. It's so heavy."_

_"I'll be right here until you can."_

_"Lee..." she whimpered, her leg searing with pain. _

_Lee shushed her and held her body in his as tight as he could. "Just a little longer."_

_"He wanted to sit down with me and die, too."_

_"He made a decision," Lee said. "He wasn't living without you."_

_"But I need him to. I need him to know he can live without me."_

_Lee tipped his head up and nodded. "You've been there with him this whole time. A life without you... he can't imagine it. You raised him good. He'd make it, but he wouldn't want to."_

_Clem felt her lips moving but nothing came out. "Open your eyes, sweetpea. It's gonna hurt a lot. It's gonna be hard. But you can do it, you're a survivor. Open your eyes." He disappeared, and so did she. _

Clem's eyes shot open and she screamed as the pain slammed against her. "Oh my God! Help me!"

"We're right here, Clem. We're goin' back to the school." It was Ruby.

Violet, Ruby, Willy, Louis, Omar, Aasim, and AJ were all there at her side. Omar and Aasim lifted her up into their arms, holding her securely.

"I - I can't make it!" she screamed.

"Yes you can," Violet said, squeezing her hand.

"It hurts so much! I can't!"

"Clem," AJ said. "We're taking you home. I love you."

She panted, tears streaming down her face. "Love - love you back."

"Don't die, Clem."

They were all covered in walker guts and began to spread the guts on her own body, her torso, her back, her arms, her leg. "Are you ready?" Violet asked.

She bit down on her lip, hard. Her lips quivered as she cried and she could smell the iron from fresh blood. She tried to remember Lee's arms around her, staying with her until she could come back. Well, she was back. It was time. "Y - yes. I'm ready."

"We've got to move fast. As fast as we can," Violet said.

"We're gonna get her home, don't you worry." Ruby.

They were staggering through the herd, all working together as a unit... all bonded over this tragedy, the trauma...

And when they got Clem back to the school, Ruby was at her side immediately at work on her leg.

She prescribed an antibiotic and a lot of hugs from Alvin Junior which he happily provided.

And there were a lot of late night kisses from Violet, kneeling down beside her on the bed, telling her she was going to be okay.

"Thank you."

Clem owed her life to her friends.

And in return, they owed their lives to her.

Together they would work to patch things up and build a new life. It would be at times shaky and uncertain, but they would make it together.

If AJ hadn't done what he'd done, she'd be dead now. Her friends visited her bedside often, and there was a smile on their face. Clem was recovering. Their lives as they had known it were recovering, laughs and jokes being exchanged between her friends. Clementine closed her eyes and slept.

_"Thank you, Lee." She was her sixteen year old self fully recovered in crutches._

_"It was all you, Clem. You have nothing to thank me for."_

_"I have everything to thank you for." She pressed herself against him in an embrace before pulling away. "If you hadn't raised me the way you did... I wouldn't have known how to raise AJ like I did. I probably wouldn't be here and maybe he wouldn't either and I can't - _imagine _that."_

_"Luckily you don't have to. Open your eyes, Clem. It's time to live your life." He smiled. "I love you, sweetpea."_

_"I love you, too, Lee." She watched as he slowly disappeared from the train. "Bye."_

What had been a few minutes on the train was a couple hours in waking life. AJ ran into the room and froze before a large smile turned the corners of his lips. "She's awake!" And in flooded all of their friends, laughing and smiling and greeting her, asking her how she felt.

Her eyes welled up with tears and she smiled. They had survived this tragedy. "I'm going to be okay. We all are."


End file.
